Bits and Pieces
by A.j
Summary: Random vignettes that are mostly Logan and Barekcentered. Mostly gen, but some UST. Bobby and Alex also appear.
1. 5 Times Bobby and Logan hung out

Five Times Logan and Bobby Had to Spend Time Together.

---

1. The ride over to the community center is strangely peaceful. Traffic is light - for the crosstown - and Logan is riding high on two parts solid detective work and one part Being On The Team. It's a bit stupid, he knows, but it feels good and he's not going to shoot himself down for taking pride in how far he's come.

He owes a lot to Deakins and knows it.

"So, how do you know so much about the Rat Pack, anyway?" The soft question startles Logan a bit. He'd almost forgotten the other detective was there, given how quiet he'd been since they'd pulled out of the underground parking garage at One Police

Plaza. Which, thinking back, was odd in and of itself. He hadn't spent much time around Goren in any concentrated situation, but from what he'd observed the guy wasn't exactly quiet or restrained. He was curious though.

Logan shrugged a shoulder and neatly cut some idiot in an SUV off. "Like I said. My dad liked 'em. You pick stuff up as a kid. Plus, hey, as sick a punk as this little brat appears to be, there could be worse role models than Dino and Sammie."

Across the car, but much closer than Barek usually was, Goren nodded. "True enough. Still, you have to wonder why that... genre. That era is so attractive to this kid. _All_ these kids."

"No, _you_ gotta wonder that." Logan slid into the right lane and turned on his signal. "I just shrug and arrest 'em. And you're no slouch in Rat Pack mythology yourself. How'd you come by all that?"

"My dad. He was a fan." Goren said it in the same way that Logan often heard himself talking about his mother. A few more pegs slotted themselves into place in his brain, and Logan nodded.

"Popular guys, our boys."

The rest of the ride was silent.

---

2. Two months after he's transferred in to Major Case, Mike Logan finally works up the nerve to walk into the squad's chosen bar.

It's a quiet little dive that's been around the corner from police headquarters since the day the building opened for business. The stools are full of DA's and ADA's and higher level detectives with long days and even longer stories behind stony eyes, and the tables are scarred and battleworn by hard use and crappy maintenance.

He hasn't been inside in over thirteen years, but the smell and the sight and the aura of the damn place is exactly the same as he remembers it. Even Old Joe - no one actually knew if Old Joe had a last name, or if his name even _was_ Joe, but then no one really wanted to ask - looked the same. A little greyer and maybe a bit heavier about the face and waist, but still. The same.

Only a few of the people at the occupied tables look up when he passes. He doesn't let himself examine the expressions because in that direction lay dragons of things he doesn't want to think about. He's here because it's been a long damn day, and on the way out the door, he'd asked his partner out for a little booze, a massive appetizer, and another brainstorming session. She'd smirked at him and waved him off to get a table. Apparently, she had a short meeting with someone mysterious, but would join him soon.

So here he is.

"Logan." Old Joe nods at him and dumps a beer on the shining bar in front of him. It's a Sam Adams, and Mike has to shake his head not to ask how Old Joe remembered. No one questions Old Joe. There are too many secrets that have been whispered in these walls. Pissing Old Joe off is just a general all-around bad idea, and one no one's ever considered with any conviction. Logan nods in a manly way, bracing himself slightly, before turning around to face the room at large.

It's almost anticlimactic that no one's paying him any attention.

Well, almost no one.

Smirking, because he really is that much of an asshole, reformed or not, Logan wanders over to an occupied table. "Fancy meeting you here."

Goren, on his behalf, just snorted and raised his own bottle of beer in a salute. "Done for the day?"

Mike dropped into the chair opposite him and shrugged. "Kind of. Barek's in some mysterious meeting for the next little while and told me to go amuse myself here until she came down with the paperwork. You?"

Goren shrugged and took a long pull from his bottle. "Same thing. It's Tuesday."

"And that's important why?" He wouldn't say it out loud, but he was glad he'd found Goren here. Drinking alone wasn't something he enjoyed much anymore, even if it meant spending time with Mr. Wacky Pants himself. And it wasn't like the other members of the squad were lining up to welcome him into their midst. Not that he blamed them, exactly.

The other man just grinned around the lip of his bottle. "You'll figure it out."

Logan gave him the wary eye, and went back to his beer. Almost exactly half an hour, and another round, later, Eames and Barek strolled in together, completely serene and calm... except for the smirking.

"Oh, hell." Logan's feet, which had been stretched out, blancing the lean he was doing with his seat, hit the floor hard and solid, a few seconds behind the chair legs. "Oh, HELL. They network?"

Goren just kept snickering.

---

3. Logan found it fundamentally unfair that the two six-foot-plus members of the collective partnerships were stuck in the smaller-than-reasonable back of the surveillance van; where as outside, the two people who probably would have been comfortable in the hard plastic chairs bolted to the running board were walking around happy as could be.

Then again, knowing Barek's sense of evil - which was quiet but way more developed than most women he'd ever met - his partner would have happily handed over her stiletto heels and put her feet up in the van.

Even if it was with Goren. Who was staring at the little video monitors like they held the answers to life, the universe, and everything. Mike tilted his head and whistled lowly. Not that the view was bad. Those heels really did wonderful things to their partners' legs.

And he really can't let that pass unremarked. "You know, your partner is hot as hell in that leather mini-skirt."

There was a snort from the man next to him. "And yours is doing illegal things to that tube top."

They eye the monitor for a minute as, on the screen, Barek starts to laugh at something.

"Do you think-"

"No."

"But we could-"

"No."

"Aww come on-"

"NO."

The speakers around them crackled to life, and amidst the ambient sounds of traffic and Barek's quiet giggling, Eames' voice cuts through the van like a buzz-saw through dry timber. _"We_ can _hear you, remember."_

---

4. Mike notices him in the cafeteria, papers and notes spread across one of the back tables. It's a surprise because Goren usually camps out with all of his paraphernalia in one of the conference rooms upstairs. Hell, most of the squad called conference room two Goren's Domain, as it spent most of its time having different photos and bits of case file pinned all over it.

But then, to listen to the squad grapevine - which Mike is admittedly at the bottom of - things are not so rosy for Goren at the moment.

He never knows quite why he does it. Suspects it has something to do with outsider solidarity, or knowing the black hole of having a woman well and truly pissed at you, or having intimate knowledge of what it's like to have a Captain who wants you pulled to strict heel. He's never completely sure about why he does it. Still, he grabs an extra sandwich before paying and takes his lunch over to sit down.

He drops the sandwich in front of the other man and takes an open chair near the cleanest bit of table.

"Hey," he says, unwrapping his turkey on wheat - damn Barek and her lingering brainwashing - and settling in.

To say Goren's face is stunned is a bit of an understatement. In that moment, Logan feels something like regret. For the guy to be surprised that someone will even sit with him at lunch... bad doesn't even begin to cover it.

"Hey," Goren says. Nods at him. "Thanks."

"No problem. What are you working on?"

Goren tells him.

---

5. It's an accident that he finds him first. They'd needed someone to check the completely unlikely backup apartment that Nicole Wallace had rented a few weeks previous. Tired of the tension in the squad room, he'd volunteered. After all, Goren was missing and Eames - or what was left of her - was in the morgue downstairs. Needless to say, Ross was losing it, and while he didn't owe the man nearly what he had Deakins, Logan felt uncomfortable watching his Captain come unhinged.

It seemed wrong somehow.

So, he'd been the one to scoot out on a busy-work excuse, leaving Wheeler as cannon fodder.

His first hint that something was not... as it should have been was the door. When he'd fumbled out the key it had creaked ominously open, exposing a long, blue hallway. The call for backup had been quiet and quick, but ever stupid and knowing that somehow _he_ had to be the one to find out what was going on, Logan had unholstered his weapon and gone inside.

Mike'd found Goren sitting quietly next to a growing blood pool, his arms stretched across his knees, wrists exposed. His service weapon lay next to him, magazine removed and empty. Nicole Wallace, beautiful even in death, lay haloed in the blood, eyes wide and staring.

"Fuck. Christ. Goren, _fuck_." Involuntarily, he stumbles back, dropping his weapon to his side and running a hand over his face. The worst case scenario lay before him, played out in graphic twisting detail.

It takes him a minute, adrenaline making the floor feel like it's tilting and heaving around him, before he can pull out his cuffs. The jingle of the links is loud in his ears, as is his breathing. Goren doesn't move as Logan edges forward, just keeps staring straight ahead, wrists extended. There are flecks of blood across Goren's face and the crisp white of his shirtsleeves.

Mike crouches down in front of the man, careful to avoid the blood and body. The cuffs go on easily and it's only when they click closed that there's any reaction at all from Goren. Just a flinch, but enough to let Mike know he isn't completely gone.

"Fuck," Mike breathes.

Goren's eyes are blank and unseeing, but they must see _something_ because he blinks and tilts his head, just so.

"She was my partner," he says, voice soft and almost child-like. "It was all I could do."

Mike bites his lip, and lets his hands curl around Goren's over the cuffs. Remembers walking away from the 27th and ignoring Lennie's legion of phone calls. Watching Barek pack up her desk to move six rows down, her eyes telling him that she knew what he was doing, and that it was only because it was _so_ important to him that she was letting him get away with it.

Goren had seven years with Eames. Seven years.

"I know, Bobby." Logan looks down at the body of the woman who's finally done what she set out to do. Destroyed this man. "I know."

In the distance, he can hear sirens. Not long now.

Quietly, carefully, he moves around and sits next to Goren to wait.

-fin-


	2. 5 Reasons Barek Left Major Case

Five reasons why Carolyn Barek left.

---

1. She feels Mike watching her sometimes. Feels his eyes on the curve of her neck, or watching as she sucks on a pen. It's the heat in her veins and the sparks in her belly that convince her it's time to leave.

She doesn't regret it.

---

2. Six days, four snubbed requests for files from archives, three ruined jackets from 'accidental' coffee spills, and a near miss in the parking garage after Deakins' last day, she meets Logan's pleading gaze.

This time, when she looks away first, it feels like failure.

---

3. A few weeks after Ross takes office, he calls her away from one of the more routine robbery cases and into a conference room. She knows something's off because he pulls the blinds and offers her a seat.

"Did you need something?" She raises an eyebrow and waits.

He holds out a file. It's moderately thin, and in one of the blue personnel files that she's not supposed to know exists. The name "Megan Wheeler" is written on the tab.

When she looks up at the Captain again, she isn't smiling.

---

4. "I can't believe you made Lieutenant."

"Why?"

"Okay, I can believe it. You're bossy enough."

"I am not. Give me your coffee."

"You know you just proved my point, right?"

"No, I didn't. I just proved that you'll do whatever I say because you're not dumb enough to deny me caffeine."

"Fair point."

---

5. Two weeks before Carolyn Barek transfers out of Major Case, she has a doctor's appointment.

Two weeks and six days before Carolyn Barek transfers out of Major Case, she notices a lump in her right breast.

Six months after Carolyn Barek transfers out of Major Case, Mike Logan buys flowers.

He fucking hates funerals.

-fin-


	3. Observe

Observe

--

Logan finds himself watching his partner more than he should.

At first, he chalks it up to her being a beautiful woman. He's known a lot of them in his lifetime, and he's sure he'll know more, but each one is a type of special treat. Women have always fascinated him. Their softness and beauty. The way they move in different situations.

Liz has mentioned more than once that they're a type of 'safe' addiction for him. That he likes watching them and getting to know them because by knowing them, he thinks he'll come closer to understanding his mother and how she could still be so important to his life. That usually just makes him shake his head and make a lame ass joke that she marks down on her pad.

He thinks Liz has closets full of pads with "Mike Logan" written all over them.

But yes, Carolyn Barek is a beautiful woman. All dark hair and eyes and ethnic in ways that might be Italian or Spanish or Polish, and fuck he can't tell because she speaks all three languages in accents that, to his untutored ears, sound perfect. He thinks that if he'd met her in a bar, rather than Deakins' office, he would have not even bothered because there was no way in hell she would have ever given him even the slightest chance.

He'd have thought, had she ever walked into a bar he was sitting in, that she was a fine wine slumming it with his beer crowd.

To say it had been a shock when she'd told him in that quiet monotone of hers that she'd grown up in Cobble Hill was a big damn understatement. That little bit of knowledge, imparted during a long and rather boring stakeout, had turned his head and made her that much more interesting to look at.

Later, he'd let himself watch her just a bit more because he couldn't figure out just how that much intelligence could fit itself into such a tiny little brain. It wasn't an obvious thing, that intelligence. He'd worked with smart people before; hell he'd even cracked a case with _Goren_, the poster-boy for exuberant and showy problem solving.

Barek wasn't like that. For one thing, she was a lot quieter than Goren tended to be. And while he wouldn't lay money on a contest between the two, he was pretty sure they'd average a draw in the long run. Barek just... didn't draw attention. Maybe it was about being female in a _guy_'s career, but all of her discoveries and epiphanies tended to be silent ones. Either mentioned in passing or in that soft voice of hers, barely audible over background noise.

It took him a bit to actually start listening to what she was saying, but when he did...

It made him want to watch her more, because there was just so much there that others apparently didn't see.

He watches her because he can't look away.

And that worries him. Because he's finding himself hoping that she'll never disappear. He doesn't want to stop watching her.

-fin-


	4. 5 Ways Barek said Goodbye

Four ways Carolyn Barek said goodbye (and one way she didn't).

---

1. By slapping Mike Logan in the middle of a fight and telling him he was a shithead. For all of .05 seconds, she'd considered telling him that his mother was right, and that he was a waste of air. When the crack of flesh against flesh had faded, and she was staring at him, eyes wide and hand stinging, she knew that she couldn't stay in this partnership.

He mattered too much to hurt like that. And she didn't trust herself not to do it again.

---

2. She always says goodbye to her nephews by ruffling their hair and kissing them on their foreheads. It started when they were toddlers, all awkward and pleading for affection by clinging to her legs as she tried to leave her mother's apartment. Routines taught consistency, and one thing she never, ever wanted her nephews to go without was the knowledge that she loved them.

Even now, when they're on the cusp of adolescence and protest (loudly) that being kissed by their aunt – even just on the forehead - is weird and gross, she does it anyway. Because when she reaches down, her lips brushing hair and warm skin, just for an instant, they curl into her.

---

3. She says goodbye to her first true love (and third lover) by kissing him long and hard on the low porch of her grandmother's house. She is twenty-seven years old and starts the academy three days later. He tastes of cloves and summer and the salt of the tears pouring down her face.

She'd convinced herself that the parting was meant to be. That fate and reality and life were too much to overcome and that Louisiana and New York were too far apart. Detective and shrimp boat captain weren't worlds that collided, let alone connected.

But sometimes, when it's late and quiet and she's had a glass of wine or three, Carolyn thinks back to that kiss on the porch. Rubs her fingers against her lips, and lets herself regret.

---

4. The last time she sees her mother's sister is at her cousin Gina's wedding. There is dancing and light and music, with her Aunt Mimi crying her eyes out and waving a tissue at every opportunity.

She remembers hugging Mimi goodbye, head turned awkwardly as to not get a face full of ample bosom and primrose corsage before walking towards the front of the VFW hall with her date.

She's almost out the door when she turns and gives her Aunt one last, carefree wave and a yelled assurance that she'll be at Gina's baby shower in three months.

Less than four weeks later, she's holding her mother's hand, crying, and listening to their priest give funeral rites.

---

5. Two days after the new Captain takes over Deakins' office, Barek finds a set of partner reassignment papers in her inbox. She blinks at them a few times, confused. She hadn't asked for them. She knows that her and her partner's solve rate is high enough that this isn't expected. Especially since the new Captain hasn't even had time to hang up his degrees, let alone dive into the murky waters of office politics.

She stares at them a good five minutes, running theories and possibilities through her brain before she notices Logan shooting her furtive glances from the coffee station. She narrows her eyes slightly and turns her chair so that it isn't obvious that she's watching him. Turns her body towards the Captain's office, and everything falls into place like dominos, or cards, or some other dumb metaphor.

_That stupid, stupid man_, she thinks. She closes her eyes and sighs while in her head, she watches Deakins walking through the doors behind her.

When she looks down again, she flips to the back pages and checks a hunch. Sure enough, the only thing left for her to do is sign the papers and hand them in to the new Captain.

It takes her all of three seconds to make her decision. She's on her feet and walking to Ross' door before she can talk herself out of it.

The other man looks up at her knock, eyes expectant.

She closes the door softly behind her and raises the folder so he can see it.

Ten minutes later, she stalks out of the office and makes a b-line directly for her partner. He's no longer haunting the coffeepot, but settled – seemingly unconcerned – at his brand new desk. The one directly across from hers. She skids to a halt less than a foot away and waits for him to look up. Doesn't move or blink or even shift until he meets her eyes.

_You're an idiot_, she glares at him and drops the transfer papers in his lap. They're cut in large pieces and most of them slide off and hit the floor with a soft swish.

"It's my life and my decision," she says, face clear. "No one makes it for me. Don't try to do it again."

She walks around the desks then, back straight and feeling strangely light. He's still gaping when she settles down across from him and digs a file out of her inbox. She flips it open to the first page before reaching over and grabbing one of the new pens out of her top drawer.

"Your turn on the financials, partner." Her tone brokering no argument, she gives him her half-smile and waits. Watches as he takes a deep breath and dumps the rest of the scraps and file into the wastebasket next to their desks.

"Yeah," he says. He smiles then. Softly and with more emotion than she really wants to cope with before her third cup of coffee. She just nods and looks down at her file.

And they go back to work.

-fin-


	5. 5 Things About Barek&Logan's Partnership

Five facts about Barek and Logan's partnership.

* * *

1. Mike actually likes that the snacks she invariably brings on stake-outs are healthy. Not because he's a big fan of fresh vegetables and whole-wheat crackers, even though he will admit that it's nice to have lost 15 pounds because of them. He just finds it charming and neat that his partner is bringing food that she's grown herself, even if he never stops giving her shit about it.

2. Carolyn only really starts liking Logan after the Ansel case. This isn't to say that she _disliked_ him before, exactly. He was a competent detective and funny when he wanted to be, but it was only after that case that she really felt he wasn't putting on some kind of show. Where he let himself relax enough to make jokes and comments that he wanted to make, rather than ones he felt he was expected to.

3. It takes Mike a while to stop noticing how pretty his partner is. This isn't to say that he doesn't know she's a beautiful woman; that knowledge never really goes away, even after the transfer goes through. No, what is startling is how often in the early days of their partnership how completely _startled_ he'd be when he'd turn around to get her input or finish an interview and see just how lovely she was.

4. Mike is much, much more efficient at report-writing than Carolyn will ever be. He blames this entirely on the fact that Lennie and Greevey were raised with typewriters and steno-machines and usually dumped all the longer stuff on the junior detective (him) whenever they could get away with it. Carolyn just smiles and shrugs before admitting that the research angle has always been her favorite, and she'll do the screeners as long as he fills in the forms.

5. He misses her after she leaves. It's a strange situation and transfer that's all bound up in the fallout of Deakins' retirement and several lawsuits pending through the affirmative action laws down in legal, but the result is her transfer out of Major Case. It isn't until a few cases in with Wheeler that it really hits him how _much_ he wishes Barek was still around. It's a strange, sad thing to realize that you've moved on from 'junior detective' and 'equal partner' to mentor. He's not ready to be the old half of the partnership.


End file.
